Clinical Opportunities and Management to Exploit Biktarvy as Asynchronous Connection Key (COMEBACK)

In most settings in the US when patients out of care and off of ART reengage with clinical providers routine labs are collected, including CMP, CD4, VL, and HIV resistance testing when indicated, healthcare benefits are reassessed, and the most recent ART regimen is restarted if the patient agrees to treatment. There may be characteristics of these regimens that may present barriers to sufficient adherence, or perform suboptimally in patients with certain immunologic and/or viral factors, which may impact virologic suppression, including multiple pills, drug-drug interactions, variable tolerability, low CD4, high VL, or low thresholds for resistance. Biktarvy is a Single Tablet Regimen (STR) with high potency and good tolerability that can be safely used in multiple patient groups, with features, including activity in patients with a history of multi-class resistance, that may facilitate immediate ART reinitiation among a broad population of patients reengaging in care in order to promote rapid virologic suppression. Addressing this important patient population with poor retention with support mechanisms to reengage in care and reinitiate effective ART immediately may improve retention in care and accelerate virologic suppression as likewise derived in immediate ART models in treatment-naïve patients, and represent a touchstone to drive sustainability in preventing new HIV transmissions in a high burden area to meet the goals of reducing HIV as a public health threat over the next 10 years.

Inclusion criteria

• HIV-infected
• Not on ART for >2 weeks
• History of estimated eGFR > 30 ml3/min
• Baseline labs (CBC, CMP, CD4+, HIV-1 RNA) and resistance genotype test collected <2 weeks or on day of Biktarvy ART reinitiation
• 18 years or older

Exclusion criteria

• No history of primary integrase inhibitor mutations, >3 TAMs, K70E, Q151M, T69 insertion, or K65R + M184V/I on prior resistance testing
• Drug-drug interactions with Biktarvy
• Pregnancy
• Unable or unwilling to provide consent for study participation
• Any condition that, in the opinion of the Investigator of Record (IoR), would make participation in the study unsafe, complicate interpretation of outcome data, or otherwise interfere with achieving the study objective.
• Current participation in another ART adherence study
• Allergy to bictegravir, emtricitabine or tenofovir alafenamide
• Signs or symptoms of opportunistic infection with cryptococcal meningitis, tuberculosis or other infection that requires delay of reinitiation of antiretroviral therapy
• Concomitant use of medications that are contraindicated with bictegravir, emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide including adefovir, carbamazepine, cladribine, dofetilide, fosphenytoin-phenytoin, oxcarbazepine, phenobarbital, primidone, rifampin, rifabutin, rifapentine, St. John's Wort, tipranavir